I will step in and help add the needed information for why harvest mainly the female BG is important. Note the suggested sizes to be harvesting in the link below. Important notes are pay attention to what the usual life span of BG will be in your local climate and harvest accordingly. For your specific goals of trying to have maximum fry production to grow LMB then use wise fishery management, discretion of harvest and use only limited harvest of the oldest adults. Harvest any size that swallow the hook or a bleeding after hook removal. Those fish almost always die within the next 3 weeks.
No harvest or very limited harvest of the largest male BG is based on published research about BG breeding behavior. It is the largest male BG that dominate the spawning areas. They occupy the most central area as bullies of the spawning area where eggs are most likely to hatch and produce the most and best fry. Largest males as a group suppress the smaller males from spending their time reproducing that results in these smaller males to keep eating and growing to then quicker become larger dominating males. This bahavior enhances the genetics by maintaining larger faster growing BG providing there is not an overabundance or too much crowding of BG numbers. Over crowding of too many BG per acre results in overall less or slower growth rates, more health problems, more stressors among individuals in the population and reduced water quality,,, in that there are more times and chances of "unhappy water" that can result in fish kills. Population numbers monitoring and management of the BG population are very important for having or growing high quality BG.
Below is a portion of the Bluegill Harvest Guidelines from the PBoss Website. Read through all the information in the link and use all the suggestions for learning more about good harvest of bluegill (BG).
https://www.pondboss.com/news/moderators-corner/bluegill-harvest-guidelines"Bruce Condello, the expert of BigBluegill.com (and other students of BigBluegill), currently thinks the goal for a memorable or trophy bluegill fishery should be to perform the larger part of harvest from midsize groups of 6”-8” bluegill. Harvesting 6” to 8” bluegill will protect the largest size classes and maintain numerous big bluegill, which provides great long term exciting angling experiences for young and old anglers. Harvest only a very few of those largest deeply hooked bleeding fish in the 9” to 10” category each year. This amounts to removing only three to six of the biggest bluegill per acre per year. Protect your biggest male bluegill to maintain the highest quality angling fun.
To take harvest for big bluegill management to the next level, remove more females than males. Learn to recognize the difference between an adult bull male and the lady bluegills (see information in the Common Pond Q&A Forum Archives about growing Bluegill). Fast growing bluegill usually do not mature and are not easily recognizable until they are 7.5” to 8” long. If you are able to recognize the sex of bluegill smaller than 7” this indicates slow growing and probably stunted bluegill who are too crowded and not getting enough food. Too much over crowing of any fish specie or any animal specie results in problems - usually health problems sooner or later
In a pond where bluegill are fed high-quality fish food pellets, harvest about 30% to 40% of the mid-size bluegill (which often amounts to 20 to 30 6-8” fish per acre per year). After the pond is 6-7 years old, do not overharvest so that each year you have some fish to replace the natural old age mortality of 20%-40% that occurs each year in every pond. It is REALLY important to keep good catch harvest records if you are serious about maintaining a long term high quality bluegill population. When the average size of fish you are catching gets smaller or the number of bluegill catches per hour decreases you need to look at making changes to your management style. Seek help on the Pond Boss Forum if you have doubts as to what changes are needed for your specific pond conditions. Each pond can have its own unique characters and problems.
The dilemma for the pond manager is, “How many and what size bluegill to remove?” A normal pond should have some type of annual harvest because natural mortality of old bluegill will occur each year despite you not seeing any floating, dead fish. Old age bluegill usually do not float after they die. They decompose on the bottom. Some annual harvest keeps remaining fish healthier and growing better than no harvest."
Growing lots of BG to feed a strong, high quality or large LMB is a tricky balancing act. One good option IMO for growing high quality LMB is to not just rely on BG as forage food for LMB and incorporate more diversity of forage items so better quality BG can be grown for a more regular BG harvest. Keep in mind that when too many LMB are present it takes more forage foods to feed those ever increasing numbers of LMB. Proper Harvest of LMB is also very important to produce a high quality fishery. Proper harvest of LMB is another important topic for having or growing a high quality fishery for ones GOALS of having the fish.
